OPTI Fonts Archive

Fonts by Castcraft Software

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Opti Font Count

946

as of July 19, 2014

OPTI fonts were created by Castcraft Software Inc. OptiFont is a trademark filed in 1990 by Fredric J. Kreiter of Castcraft. Castcraft started with metal types in the 1930s and might have folded with the death of Manny Kreiter, its last President and CEO, in 2005. (Direct lifts or sourced from Luc Devroye)

Castcraft Software released the 400-font OptiFont CD Series Vol 1 and four volumes of Opti Designer Collection with 80 fonts for each volume. Opti Designer Collection Vol 4 had an additional two supplement fonts. Castcraft also released two catalogs, The Encyclopedia of Postscript Typefaces Vol 1 and 2. A big number of fonts shown in the 2 catalogs have not been seen in the wild and it is not known if someone ever bought all of their fonts. Luc Devroye mentioned that Castcraft was selling its entire collection for US$1,000.

Majority of Opti fonts are copies of digital fonts from other foundries, which is referred to as clones. Castcraft also digitized non-digital fonts such as phototypes from Filmotype, Visual Graphics Corp (VGC), Alphabet Innovations and many others. Luc Devroye mentioned that Castcraft also made custom fonts. There are also Opti fonts that have been autotraced from printed specimen sheets. The original font where the Opti font was copied or based from is indicated if the source font is mentioned in Philippedada's Opti fonts list.

Castcraft Software mentioned in The Encyclopedia of Postscript Typefaces that it will produce the 15,000 type faces from the Type Films of Chicago. No one knows for sure how many fonts were released by Castcraft Software but Luc Devroye mentioned that there are at least 1,000 fonts. Since the fonts are no longer available for sale, they are now widely considered as abandoned or orphaned fonts. This site will put together all the Opti fonts that were shared in alt.binaries.fonts.

Only one font represents several fonts with variations in font name. So varying font names that refer to a single font such as OPTIFontname, FontnameOPTI, OFontname and OPFontname are only available on this site as OPTIFontname and the others are ignored. There would have been more fonts here if font name variations were not excluded. This site used Philippedada's fonts list as a guide and, for most part, followed his grouping.

The OPTI Fonts Archive was created in answer to the wishes of regulars at alt.binaries.fonts to give the orphaned and abandoned fonts of Castcraft Software Inc, or OptiFont, a home.

Opti Designer Collection Vol 1 to 4 with each volume containing 80 fonts. Claude posted at alt.binaries.fonts scans (probably of CD inserts) with one line showing of fonts included in the 4 volumes of Opti Designer Collection with 80 fonts for each volume. Opti Designer Collection Vol. 4 have two additional supplement fonts.

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The Encyclopedia of Postscript Typefaces Vol 1 and Vol 2 with one line showings. Many fonts shown in the two catalogs have not been seen in the wild. The photos of pages from the two catalogs were taken by Artur and were made available at alt.binaries.fonts.

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Opti Equivalence by Philippedada that lists fonts similar to or equivalent of Opti fonts. This is based on an equivalence from an unknown source posted by Character at alt.binaries.fonts. This was updated and expanded by Philippedada to include fonts from the 4 volumes of Designer Collection, the 400-font CD Series Vol. 1 and the two Opti catalogs, in addition to those already in the original equivalence. The last update is dated May 17, 2012.

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Opti Fonts List by Philippedada includes fonts that he personally knew exist or included in other Opti fonts list. Now on revision 6 dated May 17, 2012.